But First, We'll Live
by AuroreMartell
Summary: Modern AU of Jon Snow and Ygritte's epic love story, featuring Ygritte as a party girl and Jon as a serious introvert.


Jon Snow hasn't been at North-Of-The-Wall High School for very long. He doesn't know how to get from his German class to his Algebra class without being spectacularily late. He doesn't know how to get dressed for gym class without one of those annoying seniors throwing pennies at him. And he doesn't know how he'll manage to pass his Literature class without being able to scratch out a passable essay.

But he knows the students.

Jon sees that there are two distinct groups at NOTWHS: the Northerners and the Southerners. The Southerners, who are the teens not born North of the Wall, make up the vast majority. They have tan skin and are generally more easygoing than the Northerners. Technically, Jon is a Southener, but he was born so close to the Wall that he passes as a Northerner. The Southerners are separated into hundreds of what Sam Tarly calls "cliques": the Greyjoys, the Karstarks, the Redwynes, etcetera.

However, the Northerners are broken up into only four main cliques. First, there is a group of kids called "Others." They're incredibly frightening, with their dead white skin, huge pale eyes, and their way of drifting, zombie like, from place to place. Second, there are the Crasters, which are a huge group of quiet sisters who never talk to anyone but themselves. Then there's the Crows, who are very solemn and only wear black and never smile. Jon is a Crow, mostly because his cousin Benjen was one.

And then there are the Wildlings. They are the rebels, with dyed hair and multiple piercings and tattoos. They smoke outside of class. They go to crazy parties that everyone else hears about the next day. They fascinate Jon.

He is walking across the lunchroom with his roommate and best friend, Sam. Sam is a Crow too, but a different sort of Crow. He smiles a lot and laughs too much and is scorned by everyone but some of the Crows. Sam and Jon work well together.

Sam is talking about this girl he likes, one of the Crasters, but Jon is only half listening. As always, he's watching the Wildlings. Mance Rayder, a senior, is sprawled across two seats and laughing breathlessly at a story one of the guys is telling. A couple is making out. One girl with fiery red hair is throwing a Pop Tart at one of her friends. The Wildlings always look like they're in the middle of a party, a party everyone can see but no one can attend.

"...And apparently," Sam is saying, "she was right! Isn't that incredible?"

"Uh- oh, yeah, absolutely."

Sam sighs wistfully as they drop into their seats at the Crow lunch table, next to Grenn and Pyp. Sam stops telling his story. Because of some weird tradition, the Crows don't date anyone, girl or boy. This, Jon thinks, is the main reason the Crows are such a small clique.

Alliser Thorne, who was clearly telling a story, nods curtly to them. "As I was saying," he continues, like Sam and Jon were so rude to interrupt him, "Qhorin said he'd finally come back to school tomorrow."

"Excellent," opines Waymar Royce.

Jon is trying his hardest to stay involved in the dull conversation, but his eyes keep drifting back to the Wildling's table. The girl with the vivid red hair is standing on her chair, pretending to dramatically stab one of her friends in the heart with her plastic butter knife, unaware that the security guards are running over to get her off the chair. Jon feels himself smiling.

"Snow," Thorne snaps. "What are you looking at? Not those Wildling hellions, I expect."

"I, um," stammers Jon, wrenching his eyes away from the red headed girl. "I was looking at the... the window."

There is silence.

"The _window_," repeats Dolorous Edd flatly.

"It's really nice out today," Sam helps. "I mean, it snowed overnight, and the sun's making it sparkle like a-"

"Shut up."

"Okay." Sam cowers.

This means, of course, that for the rest of lunch Jon is forced to stare out the window. He does admit to himself that north of the Wall is a very beautiful place, in a harsh, terrible way. There is only long expanses of snow and ice, freezing desert wastelands, but somehow it is captivating.

He races to his next class, Biology, papers floating out of his binder in a mess, hoping to get there on time. Of course he doesn't, and Jon arrives late enough to get an empty seat. And of course today is the day they have to do that leaf experiment with a partner. He puts his head down. Today is not going so well.

_I don't know why we have to diagram a damn leaf when we live north of the Wall,_ he thinks bitterly, as he sets up the spinach leaf lab. Jon bends over to rustle in his backpack for a pen. When he straightens up, there is a girl in the seat next to him. It's the girl with the red hair.

He almost chokes.

"Are you, um, I mean, uh-"

A lazy smirk spreads across the girl's face. Up close, Jon can see that she has a square jaw, a nose broken several times, and rosy pink lips. Her eyes are clear, bright blue, her body short and skinny but muscular, and across her left bicep she has a tattoo that reads "_Kissed by Fire_." She is the strangest, most beautiful specimen of a human Jon has ever seen.

"Guess I'm your partner, then," she says in a slight Irish accent. She takes a wolfish bite out of her blueberry Pop Tart. "In case you're wondering, I failed freshman Bio."

"Oh. Um. Okay."

She lets the silence sit there in front of them, making Jon twitch. "You got a name, Crow?"

"Jon Snow."

"Ygritte."

At first he doesn't know if that is her name, or rather is she is saying something in Irish. He decides it must be her name, so he tries, "Ygritte what?"

"Just Ygritte."

"Okay."

He slumps over the blank paper, trying to remember what to do with the stupid leaf. Ygritte is slouched in her chair, tapping a pen against her crooked white teeth and examining Jon. "So... you a freshman, then?"

"Yes."

"You're tall," she reports. Her blue eyes glide over his body. "You're pretty cute, too."

Jon can feel the heat spreading from his neck to the top of his cheeks. He doesn't respond.

"Aww," she teases, swatting his tensed arm with her paper. "Bet you've never been with a girl, eh?"

"Yes, I have," he lies. He didn't think it was possible to be this embarrassed before in his life.

"Liar." Ygritte leans against her chair and grins. "Just a little Crow, aren't you? Bunch of cockblocks, more like. Bet you've never even kissed a girl, let alone fuck one. I bet-" she pauses dramatically, giving Jon ample time to wish that the floor beneath him would swallow him whole, "I bet you don't even know where to _put it_!"

"I know where to put it!" Jon snaps. His voice is awfully loud, but he realizes this a second too late. The entire class stares, wide eyed, at him.

Ygritte laughs gleefully, her fire-red head thrown back. She laughs until the bell rings, and Jon smashes his blank paper back into his binder, his entire head burning. As she turns to leave, she kisses her fingers and presses them to his cheek.

"You know nothing, Jon Snow," she says, and disappears out of the room.

* * *

A/N: So this is a oneshot that, yes, might turn into an actual short story, but i dunno. I'll probably update, but not anytime soon. Thanks for reading, please review!


End file.
